Y'all - thank you for fielding this.
I realize there is ton's written about HD upgrades.
(That's actually the problem - way too much to wade through, and I want to make sure I'm doing this right.)

THE SCOOP:
About the pull the trigger on Tivo's current sale for a factory-renewed TiVo Premiere 4.
I'd like to upgrade to a 2TB drive straight away.
I do not need to save anything from my existing Tivo. <<<
Fine to start from scratch.

NEW HD SETUP:
I've heard legend that you can swap in the new HD, and Tivo takes care of the rest automatically (eg, formats the drive and sets it up for use.)

(I've also seen deeply involved articles/videos of needing to do a lot of manual setup to the new HD using a PC, boot disks, etc.)

HELP:
Can someone confirm what I need to do here?
(Please help! Sale ends in a couple hours!)

So Top Chef has returned. Yay for not having the competition to get the coats, although it looks like there was some sort of sous chef competition or something, as Padma said that a few of them had immunity.

First challenge off the bat was an elimination challenge. No big surprise since there were so many of them. Nice to see that some people who didn't make it last season got a second chance at making it back in.

You'd expect that the chefs would be aware that they'd have the opportunity to cook frog legs, alligator, and turtle (although turtle not so much). Those are definitely foods that are region specific and you'd have to know that that would happen. Now, how often do you come across those foods elsewhere? Probably not as much. But if you have time to prepare, I'd imagine that you'd try and prepare regional items, including crayfish. Those are probably going to show up at some point.

As far as the new contestants - much will be made of the "good looking chef dude". They're already portraying him as the ego. Of course this means that he will make it through at least half of the season, or we'll lose some of our manufactured drama. :) We also have "Pretty chef girl in short shorts and flip flops in the kitchen". That's going to get on people's nerves as well. She will probably make it halfway as well. :p

I'm sorry but Ziva's reason for leaving was ridulously lame. And she "loves" Tony??? Give me a break! He may have a heart of gold, but he stands for everything she hates in a man. They managed to turn a strong character into a sniveling mess. Id rather they'd killed her off like Kate.

If my husband didn't still like this show, I'd be canceling the Season Pass after that absurd storyline.

I have had an issue I have not seen here before. My Roamio just decided it wouldn't accept remote commands. I use a Harmony and thought it might be that so I dug up the OEM remote and it still wouldn't accept a command. None. I think I pushed all of the buttons. After a reboot everything went back to normal and has worked fine for the last day or so.

Is this common? This is my first Tivo so I am not sure if this happens a lot.

I'm sure this has been discussed to death but every "tivo won't boot" thread I come across is about being stuck on the "Welcome..." screen. Mine won't even get that far.

The TiVo has power, but no lights. If I unplug and reseat the power cord (from either end) the lights on the front of the unit flash briefly and then go out again. Nothing ever comes up on the TV itself.

Suggestions? My first thought is a bad power supply but I don't have another one here so I wanted to ask for advice here before buying one to try.

Did Saul's wife not know why Carrie might be upset? Did Saul think showing up and saying he was sorry was going to make it all better? Um, he sold her out on national TV in front of Congress. Did he not expect fallout?

And how exactly do you get someone committed without revealing who you are?

This storyline with the bank is boring me.

The new analyst said she had nothing, and only when Saul was about to leave the room revealed she had a plan? That conversation made no sense. Neither did Saul all of a sudden deciding Muslim religious garb was a middle finger to victims of Islamist terrorism. Seems out of character for him.

I went on Time Warner's website today to see what my first billing cycle with a TiVo in lieu of their DVR would look like. I knew they'd get it wrong and fail to discount me as the FCC mandates, but even after a lifetime of experience, I somehow still managed to underestimate Time Warner Cable's incompetence and/or corruption.

I had expected my bill to stay the same instead of being discounted, but nope. It increased about $110! They removed me from my package, unbundled my services, and charged me for each item individually. So I braced myself for hold music and called TWC.

After a 15 minute hold, I played dumb with the first rep and let him root around to try to figure out why my bill rocketed up. Surely he would not tell me because I changed my equipment to my own in blatant violation of federal law, right? Thankfully, he did not. Instead he informed me that my previous package had simply ended. I read him last month's statement that indicated I had this package through next April. He checked again and somehow managed to come back with the same answer. Somewhere between amused and annoyed, I asked him how I managed to miss winter coming and going and he decided to check with his supervisor.

20 minutes on hold this time. Finally, with the help from his supervisor, he figured it out. It was because I moved to my own equipment and the package required me to use their equipment. In the immortal syllable of Homer Simpson, "Doh!" I quickly explained that that was a FCC violation, and therefore illegal, and said I may as well just speak to his supervisor now since that is where we were heading anyway. He, probably happily, obliged.

25 more minutes of hold music!

The supervisor started by asking me if I was told I needed to use that particular equipment with the package I had. I said no, I wasn't told that, and that that was a good thing as that would be illegal. I then read him the law verbatim with little explanatory additions sprinkled in (i.e. "That means your DVR!" "That means your bundling services!"). He sounded annoyed and for a minute I thought this was going to turn into a serious headache. After all, the FCC is currently shut down until either the Dems cave on Obamacare or the Reps stop using the same hissy fit tactic my three year old uses when he doesn't get his way. But, despite his tone, he said the right things. Yes, this was illegal. It definitely shouldn't have happened. He'll look into it and get a fix. He said he'd call me back in 10-15 minutes with a solution.

The biggest surprise of the whole interaction was not that I ended up not needing the FCC, but that he actually called me back in 10-15 minutes. Someone at TWC who provides customer service! A rare man indeed. He said he couldn't reinstate my exact package due to the system insisting I have their equipment for it, but that he found a way to price match and give me a ten dollar discount in lieu of their equipment. As an apology for the inconvenience, he extended my discounted rate for another 12 months. I accepted this.

But let us think about that for a second. Their entire computer processing system does not have the capability to follow the law. It is literally incapable. No fact has ever encapsulated the Time Warner Cable experience better than that one right there.

I lost almost two hours of my life to get what I was entitled to all along. Time Warner is no longer attempting to steal from me. What a victory.

I tuned it because I love a good witch centric drama. I thought the premiere was decent enough, but I really hope the story focuses more on the elder set of sisters because I don't know how much of Jenna Dewan's "acting" I can stomach.

It's now less than 4 hours before the next Pirates/Cards game on TBS at 3pm EDT and the TiVo schedule still has not been updated. I manually connected to the service an hour ago but neither the web or Roamio guide and search function and schedule the game. I've resorted to a manual recording but it's annoying that these sports shows aren't updated more quickly.
My Charter web page guide correctly shows the game so why can't TiVo get their act together?

This is shaping up to be a really good season of TAR. IMO the first 2 legs have sent home what seemed to clearly be the 2 weakest teams, which is good. We've also had 2 legs in a row where the first team didn't get #1, which keeps things interesting.

I was surprised at how many teams opted for the needle in a haystack challenge. You'd think they would know better by now. That salty water sure looked nasty, though. I'm sure everyone who was in it wanted nothing more than a clean water shower after that!

The guy who punted the shoeshine challenge was cracking me up the whole time he was trying convince the vendor to let him do the work, to let him pack the cart, etc. Then when the bitchy girl was trying to tell him he was doing it wrong and him calling her the devil for her trouble. Hilarious. :)

I am getting a new RoamioPro this week and will be moving my cablecard from my XL2 to the Roamio.
I was told in another thread that the recordings I already have on my XL2 will still be accessable when I remove the cablecard except for protected content.
I have Lifetime on the XL2.

Is there a way to tell if the content is protected and will not be accessible when I remove the card?

Is there a way to transfer recordings from the XL2 to the Roamio without going thru PC?

I've followed the directions to do the clear, enter, clear, 2,2,1,clear. Then i out the remote in pairing mode which i see by the flashing amber lights. But I get nothing, is there some way to know when the DVR is in new pairing mode? Am I doing something wrong?

On my Roamio, it seems that the small preview screen is visible when viewing the guide and/or in TiVo Central. On my Mini, the preview screen is only visible when viewing the guide, NOT in TiVo Central. Is that normal?